LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Prosecutors in Kansas are dropping all charges against a University of Kansas student accused of falsely reporting a rape, saying they feared publicity surrounding the case could discourage sexual assault victims from coming forward.

Douglas County District Attorney Charles Branson said in a statement Monday that the three felony counts of making a false report were dropped after much discussion. His office believed in the merits of the case, he said, but the “cost to our community and the negative impact on survivors of sexual violence cannot be ignored,” reports The Kansas City Star.

“We are concerned this case, and the significant amount of misinformation surrounding it, could discourage other survivors from reporting their attack,” Branson said. “That is unacceptable.”

Cheryl Pilate and Branden Bell, attorneys for the woman, said that although they were pleased their client could “finally put this nightmare behind her,” they were “disappointed that the DA’s office continues to promote the fiction that this case was supported by the facts.” The statement added: “It was not.”

Police first spoke to the woman in September 2018 outside a Lawrence hospital before she went inside to undergo a rape examination, according to court records. The woman said she had been raped by the friend of her ex-boyfriend, but the details were fuzzy because she was drunk at the time. She also said she didn’t want to press charges but allowed officers to look through her phone.

Police interpreted the texts as an acknowledgement that the sex was consensual, according to court records. District Attorney Charles Branson says the woman fabricated being raped out of regret and to get revenge.

However, the woman’s attorneys argue in court documents that she is innocent and that her text messages made light of what happened because she wasn’t yet able to admit she had been raped after waking up in a strange bed with no memory of how she got there with unexplained bruises on her legs, neck and arms. They say police decided to investigate her rather than the man whom she alleged attacked her. The man, who also was a university student, was never charged.

The woman’s legal fees were covered in part by the Times Up Legal Defense Fund, an organization founded by celebrities during the #metoo movement.

The student’s attorneys said she never told officers she wanted to pursue charges, though she did say she might consider it at some point. The police investigation began in October 2018 after the student asked for a detective to be present when she made a formal statement to Title IX investigators at the university, according to testimony from a motions hearing. The student ultimately decided not to meet with the university, and her attorneys say she never told officers she wanted to pursue charges, though she did say she might consider it at some point.

Patrick Compton, a Lawrence Police Department spokesman, said police have the latitude to determine whether to proceed with a case even if the reporting party declines to press charges.

Going forward, Branson said in his statement Monday, he planned to work with police to update his office’s guidelines for investigating and prosecuting sexually violent crimes. Law enforcement will provide multiple options for “survivors to report crimes on their terms,” he said.

The media isn’t naming the woman because she says she is the victim of a sexual assault and the paper has a policy of not naming sexual assault victims. The felony false reporting charge carried a maximum sentence of up to 23 months in prison.

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KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Prosecutors plan to drop all charges against a University of Kansas student accused of falsely reporting a rape.

Douglas County district attorney’s office filed a motion Monday to drop the three felony counts of making a false report against the woman.

The woman’s attorneys contend she is innocent , saying she was mistreated by police and prosecutors after reporting she was raped by a friend of her ex-boyfriend last year.

Prosecutors had contended the woman fabricated the story out of regret and to get back at her ex-boyfriend. Police have said text messages show the sex was consensual.

The woman contended the messages made light of the incident because she was not able to admit at the time that she had been raped.

By Dewey Terrill, JC Post

GEARY COUNTY —A 22-year-old Kansas man has entered a plea deal in a fatal August 2018 shooting in Junction City.

Fontelle Jolly, Junction City, entered pleas of no contest in Geary County District Court Friday to Voluntary Manslaughter, a level three person felony and Aggravated Battery, a level five lesser felony, according to Geary County Attorney Krista Blaisdell

The court originally charged Jolly with Reckless Second Degree Murder and Aggravated Battery, level four, but pleaded no contest to the new charge in an amended complaint. A jury trial had been scheduled to begin on Monday, but now will not occur.

The charges stemmed from the August 31, 2018 fatal shooting of Felix Snipes, 29, Junction City, and the wounding of Cartavius King, 25, Junction City outside an apartment complex on Wildcat Lane on the west side of Junction City.

Snipes was shot two times in the chest and later died from his injuries. King had testified he was shot three or four times.

Court testimony has revealed the the incident began as an altercation between Jolly and his girlfriend in one of the nearby apartments. King was called to the scene and later testified that he remembered that he and Snipes told Jolly to leave the premises, and Jolly sat in his own vehicle. King said he and Snipes were ready to leave, they turned around and Jolly shot them.  Sentencing for Jolly is scheduled for December 30.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Flooding along the Missouri River has stretched on for seven months in places and could endure through the winter, leaving some Upper Midwest farmland and possibly some homes encased in ice.

There are several reasons for the flooding, including high levels along the river, saturated ground and broken levees. And with forecasters predicting a wetter-than-normal winter, it’s possible flooding could continue in some places all the way until spring, when the normal flood season begins.

“There’s no end in sight. None at all,” said Tom Bullock, who hasn’t been able to live in his northwestern Missouri home since March because floodwaters cut off access to it.

In Missouri’s Holt County, where Bullock serves as emergency management director, roughly 30,000 acres (12,140 hectares) of the 95,000 acres (38,445 hectares) that flooded last spring remain underwater, and at least some of that floodwater is likely to freeze in place this winter.

Similar conditions exist in places along the lower Missouri River, where broken levees will likely take several years to repair.

Nearly every levee in Holt County has multiple breaches and many haven’t even been examined yet. Repairs aren’t likely to start on most of the area’s levees until next year, Bullock said.

One key contributor to the flooding is that the river remains high because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is still releasing massive amounts of water from upstream dams to clear space in the reservoirs to handle next spring’s flooding.

The Corps said it has been releasing more than twice the normal amount of water from most of the dams along the river and will likely continue at that pace into mid-December.

This year has been exceptionally wet in the Missouri River basin, and the amount of water flowing down the river through the year is expected to match the 2011 record of 61 million acre-feet (75.24 billion cubic meters). That is why the releases must remain high until the river freezes over in winter.

Other rivers and lakes in the region are also swollen. For example, parts of the James River in the Dakotas may not drop below flood stage between now and the start of next year’s flood season. About 50,000 sandbags are in place to protect homes and other structures near the river in Jamestown, North Dakota.

“I have never seen the water anywhere near this in the fall,” said Bill Anderson, who lives near the James in Montpelier, North Dakota. “If we get a bunch of snow, it’s not going to be pretty.”

South Dakota officials are also closely watching Lake Andes, which is the largest natural water body in the state and has been overflowing for months. The lake borders the Yankton Sioux Indian Reservation and is located near the Missouri River and Fort Randall Dam.

For the last six months, residents in the town of Lake Andes and surrounding areas have had to deal with high water that has washed out roads, flooded basements and inundated graves, said Kip Spotted Eagle, the tribe’s historic preservation director. The problem is exacerbated by a 1930s aqueduct that is not properly draining water from the lake to the Missouri River, he said.

“The water is going to freeze and it’s going to stay there and it’s going to be a big problem,” said Spotted Eagle, who lives in Wagner. “Families and kids are going to walk across that ice because it’s a shortcut to town. It’s a recipe for disaster.”

At this point, any significant rain or snow in the region could lead to new flooding because the soil is too saturated to absorb most of it and many rivers are high, according to the National Weather Service.

“It wouldn’t take a big precipitation event to renew the flooding in places,” said Kevin Low, a weather service hydrologist at the Missouri River Basin River Forecast Center.

The latest long-term winter forecast from the U.S. Climate Prediction Center predicts that much of the northern United States, including the northern Great Plains, is likely to experience a wetter-than-normal winter. That could mean there will be above-average snowpack in the Missouri River’s watershed by spring.

“It’s just not a very good setup,” Low said.

That’s bad news for farmers such as Gene Walter, whose low-lying land north of Council Bluffs, Iowa, was underwater for most of this year. Walter still can’t work on most of his land because even though the floodwaters have partly receded, it is still too muddy.

Crop insurance will give Walter about 75 percent of his normal income, but this year has been full of additional expenses related to flood damage, so “the financial drain has been unbelievable,” Walter said.

“We’re just tired, he said. “We’ve been beat up so much. We’re just tired.”

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